Lifestyler

What is a lifestyler?

A lifestyler is someone who lives their BDSM full-time instead of doing something with it now and then: it’s in how they’ve arranged their days and not in an evening. The word doesn’t come from the scene but from plain English, where it names anyone who lives a subculture full-time.

Where the term comes from

Not from BDSM, but from about three subcultures at once.

Wiktionary is the only dictionary with an entry and describes a lifestyler as someone who lives an alternative lifestyle full-time, not occasionally. The three quotes under it come from three worlds: Gloria Brame’s kink guide Come Hither from 2000, Wayne Brekhus’s study of gay men in American suburbs from 2003, and Arlene Russo’s Vampire Nation from 2008 about the vampire subculture. As opposites, the entry names dabbler and weekend warrior.

With that the most useful thing is already said: it describes no practice but a relationship to your own preference.

Lifestyler is one of three

And the other two are no less.

In Peacocks, Chameleons, Centaurs, sociologist Wayne Brekhus distinguishes three ways of handling such a side of yourself. The lifestyler, in his terms the peacock, lives, works and socializes within almost exclusively that one circle. The commuter or chameleon has an ordinary life in the suburb and an intensely different life outside it. The integrator or centaur mixes the two on a low flame. Brekhus sums the difference up as something you are against something you do against a part of yourself, and notes explicitly that these three strategies occur across all kinds of social categories and not only among the men he studied.

How rare it is

Rarer than the scene suggests.

The systematic review by De Neef and colleagues in Sexual Medicine lays out the figures: 12.5 percent of the general population regularly does something that falls under BDSM, about 1 percent seeks it out away from home and visits clubs or events, and an even smaller group lives it 24/7. How small that group is, no one knows. The same authors write that BDSM is seen by some as a leisure pursuit and by others as a lifestyle, an identity or even an orientation.

What I see in this myself

I’m Victor, a gigolo, twenty-five years in BDSM and trained as a psychotherapist. Almost no one calls themselves a lifestyler. The word mostly comes up when someone is describing another person, usually with awe and sometimes with a hint of “now that one really does it”.

That awe is exactly the problem. Brekhus’s three strategies sit side by side and not one above the other. I see people who keep it up on a low flame for years, and I see people who started full-time and burned out within half a year.

Where this fits on my site

If you want to feel once what it’s like when the role doesn’t stop at midnight, without building your life around it, a multi-day arrangement is the shortest route. That page shows how it’s set up.

Sources

• lifestyler. Wiktionary. The only dictionary entry that exists for this word. Supplies the word formation from lifestyle plus the suffix -er, the description “one who lives an alternative lifestyle all the time, not just occasionally”, the antonyms dabbler and weekend warrior, the related lifestylist, and the three quotes the entry is built on: Gloria G. Brame, Come Hither: A Commonsense Guide to Kinky Sex (2000), Wayne Brekhus, Peacocks, Chameleons, Centaurs (2003) and Arlene Russo, Vampire Nation (2008).
• Peacocks, Chameleons, Centaurs: Gay Suburbia and the Grammar of Social Identity. Wayne Brekhus, University of Chicago Press, 2003 (ISBN 9780226072913). Ethnographic study of gay men in American suburbs. Supplies the three identity strategies with their names, lifestylers or peacocks, commuters or chameleons, integrators or centaurs, the description that lifestylers live, work and socialize within almost exclusively that one circle while commuters combine a conventional suburban life with an intense life outside it and integrators mix the two on a low flame, the summary “lifestylers see homosexuality as something you are, commuters as something you do, and integrators as part of yourself”, and the conclusion that lifestyling, commuting and integrating occur as competing strategies across a broad range of social categories. Cited from the publisher’s description; the book itself is not freely viewable.
• Bondage-Discipline, Dominance-Submission and Sadomasochism (BDSM) From an Integrative Biopsychosocial Perspective: A Systematic Review. Nele De Neef, Violette Coppens, Wim Huys & Manuel Morrens, Sexual Medicine 7(2), 129–144, 2019 (DOI 10.1016/j.esxm.2019.02.002). Supplies the ladder of figures in which the lifestyler is the top rung: 12.5 percent of the general population regularly does at least one BDSM-related activity, about 1 percent explores that interest away from home and visits clubs or events dedicated to it, and an even smaller subgroup applies BDSM 24/7 in their own life, with the authors adding that specific prevalence figures for that last group are not known. Also supplies the finding that BDSM is seen by some as a leisure pursuit and described by others as a lifestyle, an identity or even an orientation.

Related terms

• Lifestyle. The concept itself, with the distinction against play only and the confusion with the swinging world.
• 24/7. The arrangement with no end time, which most lifestylers talk about when they use this word.
• Kinkster. The other self-chosen label, which is about belonging rather than about full-time.
• D/s. The relationship a lifestyler usually has set up continuously.
• High protocol. The strict code of conduct that comes with the worked-out form.
• Pro Dom. The opposite: the exact same role, but as paid work.